Ocean City School Building Commission
government · founded 1914
Statutory commission created by Chapter 227 of the Acts of the Maryland General Assembly of 1914 (approved 1 April 1914) to build and equip a public school building at Ocean City with $25,000 of state money and $2,000 levied by the Worcester County Commissioners, on a site to be furnished and donated — by purchase or condemnation — by the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City. Its members were the President of the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Education, and the president and county superintendent of the Worcester County school commissioners, plus a fifth person chosen by the four; they served without compensation, elected a chairman and secretary, kept minutes open to inspection by the State and the county, and were required to account in full to the Comptroller when the building was finished. The completed building became the property of the State of Maryland, available to the county rent-free as the Ocean City public school from 1 September to 1 June each year and to the state teachers' summer schools and conventions the rest of the time. It engaged Theodore Wells Pietsch as architect and opened bids at Ocean City on 29 August 1914.
In the record (3)
1914 · 1914-04-01
Chapter 227 of 1914 puts $25,000 of state money and $2,000 of county money into a public school building at Ocean City — and makes the town condemn the ground for it.
The Maryland General Assembly sat in 1914 and passed exactly two acts touching Ocean City. The larger is Chapter 227, approved 1 April 1914, which recites that "the State of Maryland has not any available building on the Eastern Shore suitable for the accommodation of such assemblages" of public school teachers and that "Ocean City, Maryland's only seaside town, is an ideal place for such meetings." It creates an **Ocean City School Building Commission** — the President of the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Education, the president and county superintendent of the Worcester County school commissioners, and a fifth man of their choosing — appropriates $25,000 from the State Treasury and directs the Worcester County Commissioners to levy $2,000, and requires the **Mayor and City Council of Ocean City** to furnish and donate the site, arming them with the power to condemn it if they cannot agree a price. The finished building becomes the property of the State of Maryland, and from 1 September to 1 June each year is the Worcester County public school at Ocean City, rent-free. This is the first state money the campaign has found being spent on a building inside Ocean City. No charter legislation passed for the town in 1914, as none had in 1910 or 1912.
State Teachers' Association of MarylandE. W. McMasterPhillips Lee Goldsborough
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1914 · 1914-08-29
Theodore Wells Pietsch designs Ocean City's State School Building — a 900-seat auditorium in rough-texture brick with a slate and copper roof — and bids open in the town on 29 August.
The Democratic Messenger of 29 August 1914 runs the architect's rendering on its front page, over the caption WHERE ANNUAL TEACHERS' CONVENTIONS ARE TO BE HELD: "The accompanying cut published in the Baltimore Sun illustrates the principal front of the proposed new Ocean City State School Building. The plans provide for an auditorium with a seating capacity of 900, with four classrooms, lobby, foyer, cloakrooms, toilet rooms, etc. There is a stage in connection with the auditorium, accompanied by dressing rooms. It is proposed to hold the teachers' State conventions in this building… The design is along simple classic lines, with walls of rough texture brick and roof of slate and copper. **Theodore Wells Pietsch is the architect** and the following contractors are estimating on the work: Singer-Pentz Company and E. D. Springer & Co., Baltimore; H. B. Pilchard, Pocomoke City, Md.; L. M. Holland, Berlin, Md.; W. D. Corddry, Snow Hill, Md.; T. H. Mitchell and E. S. Adkins Company, Salisbury, Md. **Bids are to be opened at Ocean City to-day.**" Pietsch is the Baltimore architect of the Broadway Pier and the Baltimore Fish Market; this is the first named architect of a public building at Ocean City in the campaign's record.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1916 · 1916-04-18
Chapter 496 of 1916 appropriates $1,500 in interest to the contractor of Ocean City's new state-built public school, on $17,190.10 the state had left unpaid through 1915.
The Ocean City School Building Commission was created by Chapter 227 of the Acts of 1914 and "caused to be erected and equipped at Ocean City, Maryland, a school building" — completed by the contractor on time, to the Commission's satisfaction and the architect's approval. The 1916 act recites that five architect's certificates went unpaid: 26 January 1915, $3,591.30; 2 March 1915, $3,428.30; 31 March 1915, $3,369.75; 28 May 1915, $3,119.30; and 9 July 1915, $3,681.45 — $17,190.10 in all, "upon which interest is demanded and demandable." The General Assembly appropriated $1,500 to cover the interest, payable on drafts by the Commission's secretary. The state's comparative appropriation table in the same volume carries "Ocean City School Bldg. Commission ... 25,000 00." The building was in use as a public hall almost at once: the Maryland State Teachers' Association's summer institute and the Tri-County Institute both met in it in 1916.
Source · checked 2026-08-06